The expansion of Nakoda Bhairav’s worship By Dr. Jeremy Saul

The Jain temple in Nakoda, western Rajasthan, is very popular with Jains, especially of the Svetambar sect, not only for its images of canonical (scriptural) Jain ascetic saviors, called tirthankars, but also its famous image of Bhairav, who is regarded as providing great miracles, especially of wealth. Although deities like Bhairav are understood to be guardians of the Jain tirthankars, hence subservient to them, they commonly perform as granters of miracles for devotees who pray to them in Jain temples, so these guardians have assumed much importance in their own right. Various guardians are known to me, and each one is commonly associated with an original shrine connected to the god’s own story of becoming a Jain guardian. Nakoda Bhairav has a similar story, and his case is doubly interesting because since around 1990 onwards, his image has been duplicated in virtually all Svetambar Jain temples throughout western India and perhaps even beyond.
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I have had the opportunity to visit both Nakoda and many Jain temples where Nakoda Bhairav is represented. But starting with Nakoda itself, available historical lore, as currently presented in handbooks for pilgrims, states that the main Jain tirthankar image there had been buried some centuries ago to protect it from iconoclastic Muslim rulers. But then Bhairav appeared in a Jain ascetic’s dream and told him where to recover it so as to restore it to its temple. From this time, Bhairav has been regarded as the main protector of the tirthankara at that temple. However, a few centuries ago, the local people became unhappy with the Jains who lived near this temple because of their supposed wealth and arrogance, and so all the Jains were compelled to leave. After this, the ostensibly pure vegetarian Bhairav became worshipped only by local non-Jains, who gave the image animal sacrifice and alcohol, items that are impure and considered abhorrent in Jain practice.
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This situation continued until another Jain ascetic arrived in Nakoda around a century ago, and purportedly had a dream in which Bhairav stated his wish to be reinstalled in the Jain temple. But as a condition for this, the ascetic demanded that Bhairav would need to henceforth refuse all impure offerings so as to comply with Jain ritual protocol. And so, this local Bhairav became appropriated to Jain ritual, as opposed to impure village customs. But more recently, by the late 1980s, merchants descended from Rajasthan who now live in cities throughout India became increasingly convinced of the miraculous powers of Bhairav, along with various other village deities from around Rajasthan, and therefore funded improvements in the deities’ existing structures and also the founded numerous new temples for them in northwestern India, and later throughout the country.
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This higher level of mercantile funding, which also involved Svetambar Jains, since they too are traditionally merchants, led to the expansion of Nakoda Bhairav’s worship in numerous Jain temples. In all these cases, Bhairav is represented in the same form as in Nakoda. He was said to have appeared to the Jain ascetic in Nakoda only from torso up, so his image in Nakoda is represented that way, and all the duplicate Nakoda Bhairavs in Jain temples elsewhere are likewise shown that way, making their link to the Nakoda god obvious. In all these cases, besides supernaturally protecting the tirthankar, the god plays a role in increasing devotees’ wealth. Considering Jains’ mercantile lifestyle, this seems entirely appropriate. In this way, one deity has become ubiquitous in Svetambar Jain temples.